The Ventriloquist

28 years ago - 22-year-old Arnold takes his first job as an accountant.

​11 years ago - 39-year-old Arnold kills someone in a fit of rage. He is sent to Blackgate Prison, where he finds a ventriloquist dummy.

6 years ago - 44-year-old Arnold's ventriloquist dummy is damaged, and he first manifests it's personality as Scarface. Under the leadership of his new boss he escapes Blackgate Prison and starts his own gang.

The Ventriloquist is another example of a pretty well concieved, thoroughly executed Batman Villain that doesn't really get a lot of attention because there's such a glut of options. There are some pretty obvious weaknesses to him; He's not really a physical thread and once you finish enjoying the novelty of his concept he is basically just a run-of-the mill gangster, but he's still a cool character to have in the mix of Gotham's underworld.

The Ventriloquist's Story

​The Ventriloquist first appeared in 1988, which is right at the height of the evolution of the reimagining of Batman's mythology into something tied more into a dark landscape of pyschologically dammaged sociopaths.

The initial twist of the character is really the ONLY twist; once you get past the clever notion that you're talking to a ventriloquist dummy Scarface really is a very traditional. classic notion of an organized crime boss. This isn't a condemnation, as it happens. Batman's landscape really requires a collection of classic mob bosses and not all of his enemies are particularly suited for it.. and for whatever reason they tend to get killed off with alarming regularity. Scarface is particularly well suited to the role since he's actually such a straightforward representation of a gangster.

Which is, of course, deliberate; Arnold Wesker is actually putting on the persona of a gangster. It's worth pointing out that this is a pretty quick and dirty representation of multiple personality disorder... and it clearly isn't accurate. It was actually common to create new Batman enemies based on a loose interpretation of some sort of mental disorder, and while this outlandish character is fun, we obviously need to acknowledge that this isn't really how it works.

The Ventriloquist's Future

In the comic, a major development in the story of the Ventriloquist is the death of Arnold Wesker. The Scarface dummy is then picked up by a character named Peyton Reily, the daughter of a classic Mob Boss and a ready-made moll for Scarface's classic gangster persona. Maybe there are people that really like that idea. Peyton was actually a better actual ventriloquist than Wesker, not messing up specific letters anymore, and she was a much more willing supporter of his violent plans... acting almost like a Harley Quinn allegory. Personally, the idea that really makes the Ventriloquist so fascinating is the idea of the conflicting personalities within Wesker, so the notion that another person has picked up the dummy and that Scarface has somehow lived on without Wesker doesn't really fly for me.

I'd rather just see him as one of the major crime bosses in Gotham moving forward. He's currently one of the few organized crime figureheads in Gotham, and the fact that he really does view himself as a victim of his own crimes is something that needs to thrive as we move forward.